US economy's latest output: better jobs

Newest job numbers show that businesses are expanding opportunities in high-wage fields.

Wednesday, 04/12/06

The US economy isn't just producing jobs these days, it's also producing good jobs. Alongside the ads for jobs handling a cash register or a spatula are these new opportunities:

In St. Louis, AFB International is enlisting both technicians, paid $30,000 to $40,000, and PhD scientists, offered $80,000 to $100,000, in its quest for the perfect pet food.

In Delaware, Honeywell plans to hire people at $40,000 to $100,000 to work in a data-storage center.

In southern California, some of the latest openings involve working on the railroad, for $35,000 to $70,000 a year. Union Pacific plans to add 2,000 employees altogether.

[....]

The economy added 211,000 jobs in March, according to a Labor Department report Friday - a solid showing about on par with expectations. The unemployment rate fell a notch, to 4.7 percent.

[....]

Even the manufacturing sector, which has long offered blue-collar workers a measure of middle-class prosperity, appears to be stabilizing after a period of heavy job losses. Despite downsizing in the automotive industry, 175,000 more people are employed in production occupations today than a year ago.

[....]

[Source: csmonitor.com]

Power Architecture directions: Two-year-old Academic Initiative enhances computer science curricula, seeks to reverse student decline
An interview with Gina Poole, IBM Vice President of Innovation and University Relations

11 Apr 2006

[....]

You cite an alarming decline in the number of U.S. students majoring in computer science and engineering, particularly among women and minorities. What has caused this decline?

Gina: In the U.S., we've seen a decline in science and engineering degrees over the past ten years, while the number of newly declared computer science majors has actually declined by 32% over the last four years. Ever since the dot.com bust, there's been a steep drop-off. Clearly, women and under-represented minorities are leaving at alarming rates or not even considering science and engineering programs.

There are a couple of reasons: one is a myth, believed by parents, students, and high school guidance counselors, that computer science and engineering jobs are all being outsourced to China and India. This is not true. The percentage of the total number of jobs in this space is quite small -- less than 5%. According to a government study, the voluntary attrition in the U.S. has outpaced the number of outsourced jobs to emerging nations. Further, for every job outsourced from the U.S., nine new jobs are actually created in the U.S.

[....]

You name software engineering as the fastest-growing occupation in coming years. Where is most of this growth taking place?

Gina: The growth is everywhere. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has identified computer-based jobs as one of the hottest areas, and those involving specific skill sets -- systems analysts, database administrators, computer scientists -- as some of the fastest-growing occupations through 2012, with growth rates anywhere from 40 to 70% in the U.S. alone. Further, at least 1.5 million additional IT field professionals will be needed by the end of this year.

[....]

[Source: IBM.com]

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998
By Bob Carter
(Filed: 09/04/2006)

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

[....]

There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several parallel fronts.

First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.

[....]

[Source: Telegraph.co.uk]

Bullish on Baghdad
The Iraqi economy shows signs of strength.

BY ROBERT T. MCLEAN
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

[....]

As the Iraq campaign continues to be labeled a disaster by political opponents of the Bush administration at home, by those suspicious of the United States abroad, and increasingly by conservatives who call themselves realists yet have no realistic plan for Iraq, positive indicators about the Iraqi economy are not too hard to find. Though the economy expanded by an unimpressive 2.6% in real terms in 2005, that figure is scheduled to reach over 10% this year, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. Dawn Liberi, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Iraq, noted in February that per capita income has increased from $500 at the time of the invasion in 2003 to $1,500 today.

Despite the charge by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that American efforts to improve the devastated Iraqi economy "have largely been a wasteful, and highly ideological and bureaucratic failure," more than 30,000 new businesses have been registered with USAID in the past seven months alone. While the bureaucracy undoubtedly has been responsible for waste and inefficiency--not something uncommon with these types of establishments--ideological efforts to introduce conservative principles into the Iraqi economy seem as little cause for alarm.

[....]

The new Iraqi dinar, the official currency introduced in July 2003, has become a stable and unifying presence in the economy of Iraq. The banking sector is emerging as a powerful economic staple now that the Baathists no longer corrupt and distort the system. A similar development has occurred with the 2004 introduction of the Iraq Stock Exchange, as it too is free from the corruption that beleaguered the Hussein-era Baghdad Stock Exchange. About 90 stocks are listed, and market capitalization grew from $1.15 billion at the end of 2004 to $2.14 billion at the same time last year. However, fear of foreign domination of the market has kept it closed to international investors. An Iraqi investor noted to Agence France-Presse late last February that the best way to increase the capital flowing into the Iraq Stock Exchange is to "open the market to foreign investors and get money into the market." This will happen over time.

[....]
[Source: opinionjournal.com]

HANDWASH KILLS BIRD FLU BUG IN 30 SECONDS
Hope over £2.99 spray
By Greig Box

AN ORDINARY handwash costing just £2.99 can kill the bird flu virus in 30 seconds, tests have found.

No-Germs, a simple hand spray, has been on sale over the counter for two years. But when the H5N1 avian flu outbreak gathered pace among birds, No-Germs owners decided to test it against the virus.

The results, revealed yesterday, were remarkable - the handwash was more [than] 99.8 per cent efficient in killing H5N1. The discovery has been heralded as a "major breakthrough" - particularly if the virus ever mutates into a human form.

[....]

The product was developed two years ago in an effort to tackle MRSA.

No-Germs was tested against a strain of H5N1 at a lab at Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry in the University of London.

H5N1 has killed more than 100 people worldwide - but almost all were in direct contact with diseased birds.

[Source: dailyrecord.co.uk]